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Forum highlights: Nuclear Power - “Acceptance Through Awareness," Time for Greenpeace to Recognize N- Power Benefits for Humanity; Dr. Patrick Moore revisits and endorses Nuclear Energy as a Clean Power Source

“Yet, nuclear medicine, used to diagnose and treat millions each year, is widely considered a beneficial use of nuclear technology; the medical isotopes used in diagnosis and treatment is often made in nuclear reactors,” Dr. Moore asserted.

Mumbai, India (PRWEB UK)6 October 2012

Dr. Patrick Moore, co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace has strongly commended the use of nuclear energy as a clean power source, besides its beneficial applications in medicine, agriculture and other key areas.

Sharing his view in an article he has written exclusively for Asian Nuclear Energy, only magazine of its kind in Asia published by New Media, the Media Partner of the Summit, Dr. Moore, who describes himself as a lifelong environmentalist, regretted that he had “erred back in the 1970s and 1980s in believing everything radioactive was evil.”

“Yet, nuclear medicine, used to diagnose and treat millions each year, is widely considered a beneficial use of nuclear technology; the medical isotopes used in diagnosis and treatment is often made in nuclear reactors,” Dr. Moore asserted.

Dr. Moore said that as a co-founder and, for 15 years, a leader of the environmental organization Greenpeace, he had once strongly opposed nuclear power. “But after more than 40 years of environmental activism, I have changed my mind on that single issue,” he said, adding, “I say it’s time my former organization and the rest of the movement did the same.

He has called upon members of Greenpeace, the organization he had fervently served before leaving it, to support nuclear power generation and recognize this valuable humanist strategy of bringing clean, safe, reliable electricity to those who need it.

Dr. Moore said that in India, where some 69 percent of electricity is generated by coal-fired plants, it still has substantial hydro potential and where hydro is unavailable nuclear power generation is by far the best option, given it is clean, safe and reliable.

Referring to the agitation at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, Dr. Moore said that he was “saddened to see his old colleagues at Greenpeace stating KNPP is unsafe and risks a Fukushima-like incident.”

“Let us be very clear about Fukushima: No one died from radiation there, and according to the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima, the world’s best experts on the subject, no one will die in the future as a result of this event,” he said.

Dr. Moore said that more than 20,000 people had died in Japan as a result of the earthquake and its subsequent tsunami, while no one had died as a result of radiation from the nuclear plant.

A co-founder and former leader of Greenpeace, Dr. Patrick Moore is Chair and Chief Scientist at Greenspirit Strategies Ltd, advisors to government, industry and associations. He is author of Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist available at http://www.amazon.com